By whose standards? Reflections on empowerment evaluation and grassroots groups

Abstract

Our recent work with grassroots organizations raises several questions about empowerment evaluation. Critics have focused on concerns such as lack of rigor and objectivity, but few have addressed deeper philosophical issues. One of these issues centers on evaluation standards. Empowered program stakeholders who set the research agenda in the empowerment model may have different ideas from those of the professional evaluator about the structure of inquiry and the use of evaluation. In some cases, the evaluator may question the ethics underlying their choices. One critical issue is whether overarching standards for empowerment evaluation are needed, and if so, who defines them. A second issue focuses on whether there is harmony between the model's twin goals of evaluation ownership and group advocacy, which we found to be incompatible in some situations. Many grassroots organizations who were concerned with group advocacy (e.g., receiving recognition, attracting funding) found it pragmatic to surrender evaluation ownership to the institutionally-based, professional evaluators, particularly when they anticipated favorable evaluation findings.